


And So the Righteous Perish

by Toryb



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (That would be Alice to Betty), Attempted Murder, Child Abuse, F/M, The Farm is a Cult, description of drowning, self indulgent theories disguised as a ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:50:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toryb/pseuds/Toryb
Summary: The Farm takes drastic measures to get Betty to convert.





	And So the Righteous Perish

**Author's Note:**

> So just to let you know, this is not for the faint of heart. It's just one troubling scene that was difficult for even me to write. It is definitely based off of my theory for what's to happen in Farm land which I recommend you [read first](http://tory-b.tumblr.com/post/183116795970/so-given-the-farms-ascension-thing-my-mass) just to get an idea about what I'm writing in here.
> 
> It's tagged but i'll say it again, this ficlet involves discussion of alice abusing betty, attempted murder, and descriptions of drowning (while brief are still present). So just be prepared. but also thank you for reading! This is unbeta'd because it's late and I'm tired but if I don't post this now it's never going to get posted, so all mistakes are mine and I heavily apologize for them.

It had all seemed so innocent at first, a little place called the Farm that her sister had run off to for her own safety. Maybe it was her innocence that made it innocuous, sheer determination of will to make the Farm not be a Heaven’s Gate monstrocity, but instead a sweet elderly couple dedicated to helping lost youths. But nothing in Riverdale is ever what it seems.

 

Her mother sold the house, dragging Betty kicking and screaming to the commune where all the windows were boarded up and the only reason they got sent to school was the threat of Sheriff Jones actually doing something about what was going on. Not that she thought he would. Whatever was happening with her mother and FP Jones was not the biggest concern to her anymore, not when the threat of so much more lingered over her head at every waking moment.

 

She sleeps in a room with three other girls, Evelyn being one of them. They tried to braid her hair and have slumber parties where they talked about boys. Sometimes Kevin would join them. When he did, Betty wouldn’t say a word.

 

They tell her that she needs to find a nice Farm boy and leave her ‘Serpent King’ behind. The name makes her cringe when Jughead says it, but hearing it fall from a Farmgirl’s mouth leaves a foul taste in her mouth. They don’t know him. They don’t know her. They don’t even know Alice or Polly, whom they claim to have accepted every inch of. Betty suspects the reasons her family finds solace is the ignorance of their past mistakes. Here, Polly does not have to own up to the ramifications of being a single teenage mother. Here, Alice is not confronted with the demons of her childhood, the ghost of her ex-husband, and all the times she has failed as a mother. Here an asinine belief is exchanged like currency for peace of mind.

 

At first, it’s intolerable and terrifying, but she can still go to school. She still sneaks out and spends nights with her boyfriend. It’s a strange turn of events where they’ve making love in the bedroom that used to be hers but is not lined with stolen drive-in movie posters and a depressing amount of plaid. Instead of Polly scowling at them over freshly pressed orange juice, Jellybean’s records are scratching as she kicks her foot into the wall and threatens them with her slingshot. At the Jones’s she can almost forget how much the world has spiraled out of control.

 

Well at least until it’s the Jones’s spiraling out of control. It’s Veronica who brings the bad news because of course it is. Gladys Jones is running the drug market now. Gladys Jones isn’t here because of her son, but instead to buy out a whole lot of things and keep fizzle rocks on the streets. That night the home implodes and Jughead and Betty find themselves making love on the banks of Sweetwater River to drown out the world.

 

It goes from bad to worse, so silently at first, and then all together and all at once. They steal her from her bed in the middle of the night. She hears Kevin, from her feet, whisper to Polly and Evelyn--holding her arms to keep them from flailing--talk about ascension. When she tries to scream the cloth in her mouth drowns it out. As they drag her into the room, the same room her mother nearly drowned in, she has just one thought on her mind.

 

_ I’m going to die here. _

 

When they lock her inside a little room to “prepare for her baptism” her hands are freed and her mouth isn’t gagged any more. There’s no use in screaming though. No one is around for miles to hear her. Never in her life has she been more grateful that she sleeps with her phone tucked into the hidden pocket of her pajama shorts. It makes sense that the reception is terrible at best and she has to stand on top of the single rickety desk in the room just to get one bar of reception and when the call comes through its spotty.

 

“Hello? Betty?” Her boyfriend sounds tired but she’s never been more relieved in her life to hear his voice. “What’s wrong?”

 

“The Farm. Jughead the Farm you have to come here right now. I think they want me to ascend.”

 

The other end of the line crackles and his sentence comes through halfway, “....the Farm? Did something happen? Are you okay?”

 

There door rattles and in comes her mother, flanked by Polly and Evelyn, like the three Fates come to clip her string. She panics and turns to the phone. “HELP! JUGGIE PLEASE! I love you!”

 

Polly grabs her phone and ends the call right as she hears Jughead start to rustle around, shouting something to someone. He starts to ask her more questions but the line is already dead. They pulls her down and strip her naked. It feels less embarrassing, more painful as she tries to fight their hands away, pushing back as they tug her into the same white dress her mother wore the day of her own baptism.

 

“Mom please,” Betty begs, “Please don’t do this.”

 

“Oh sweetheart, I promise it’ll all be worth it. When you ascend you’ll be able to leave the last of what’s here behind. No more Jones men holding you back, not like they did with me. You’ll be reborn as someone so much better. It’s only scary for a second and then it’s so peaceful.”

 

She sobbing as they drag her into the empty room. There’s candles and faceless people all smiling the same sort of smile as Polly forced her onto her knees in front of the bathtub. Betty screams again but the concrete muffles it from the rest of the world. Stall. She has to stall. She has to give Jughead time to come get her, hopefully with backup.

 

“We don’t have to do this. Shouldn’t it be a choice? Shouldn’t this be my choice?”

 

Alice falters for only a moment before she smiles again. “Edgar said that if perhaps you weren’t coming around, we should help you see the light. Everyone here is so happy, Betty. You can be happy too. You can forget all about your father, about every terrible thing the Blossoms did to us.”

 

“I don’t want to forget, Mom! I don’t need to forget. It happened and ignoring that is just going to make everything so much worse. We end up like them, like all of them. Trauma hurts and it’s scary and it would be so much easier to forget everything but we can’t. It’s not worth it. We have to be strong and overcome or see someone who can help us be like this. Ignoring it all is just going to eat you alive! It makes you do insane things like this. I don’t want this. I don’t want this and even if you put me in that water and I come back I’ll still be Betty because I know how to deal with things and not let them change who I am!”

 

She can’t do anything but scream after that. She screams until they’ve forced her down in the water and she gasps one more time for air before everything is consumed with water. No matter how much she struggles they don’t let her out and then suddenly it’s nothing but white noise as her body goes limp.

 

When Jughead bursts through the doors of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy he doesn’t just have Sweet Pea and Fangs flanking him, but a distract looking Archie and the clank of Veronica’s heels. It’s a mass of white clothes everywhere, huddled around a tin bathtub. But it isn’t the people he notices first. It’s the wails, the cries of someone he knows well, the sobs of Alice Cooper.

 

He pushes everyone away until he’s at the center of the huddle. He ignores the surprised shouts, the half hearted verbal jabs, and can only focus on the vision before him. Betty is lifeless in Alice’s arms, ghostly white and drenched in water. His heart stops and he falls forward.

 

“She’s not breathing,” the woman who used to bake treats for the three Musketeers when they played over in the Andrews backyard. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to see her like that again. “My baby isn’t breathing.”

 

It seems cruel, in retrospect, to reach forward and grab Betty from her grasp. Every limb is on autopilot. Compressions, compressions, compressions. Breath, breath, breath. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It don’t occur to him that the other Farm members are attempting to scurry until he vaguely hears Sweet Pea holler in his peripheral. There’s the pop of bones as Betty’s rib cage cracks under the pressure of his movements.

 

Someone tells him to stop. He doesn’t know who but he hates them. He hates them so much. Maybe it’s Archie, or maybe it’s Kevin the fucking traitor, or maybe it’s someone else who he ignores. It all seems futile until there’s the quiet sputter of breathing and under his hands he feels the sharp rise of her chest.

 

“She’s alive!” Alice shouts.

 

Betty’s eyes are open but they’re not really looking at anything. She seems confused, eyelashes fluttering as she opens her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out except a small gush of water--the last of whatever was in her lungs--and a tired groan. When Alice reaches out to touch her, Jughead smacks her hand back, gathering up his girlfriend’s frame and holding her tightly to his chest. 

 

“Don’t fucking touch her,” his voice is laced with venom. “You don’t to touch her anymore.” For her part, Alice listens, sitting back and silently sobbing. He’s rocking her slowly and whispering the sweetest nothings he can think of. “It’s going to be okay, Betty. I promise. I’ll always protect you.”

 

Somewhere off in the distance, he hears the sirens rushing towards them.

 

“Everything’s going to be okay.” His tears splatter onto her damp cheeks as he wraps her in the warmth of his leather jacket.

 

But really, in a town like Riverdale, he’s not sure that’s true anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> well I hope that wasn't SO bad! Not my usual but I enjoyed it!


End file.
